THE FARMER'S FORUM:
The Farmer's Forum An Object Lesson in Erosion EVERY school child knows that water runs down hill. He knows that it runs much faster down a bare slope than it does down a slope covered with trees....
...For generations cotton has been grown upon a ten-month credit basis...
...but it was so loose and warm there that we set to work and fixed more nitrogen in that field in one season than you can fix here in two...
...This whole region for inches on every side of us is losing nitrogen...
...Everywhere in the South is this cry for cheaper money...
...The whole industrial fabric of the South is woven from a bale of cotton...
...Corn should be planted from the 10th to the 20th of May...
...This will be acclimatetd so that it will ripen...
...What is the answer...
...The erosion on the slope loosens stones, which are carried down upon the valley farms...
...Then buy under the name of Fairview, sell under the name of Fairview, have your butter marked Fairview, print Fairview on your berry boxes and have eggs marked Fairview, paint Fairview on your wagon boxes and have Fairview printed on your letter heads and envelopes...
...This report shows a very unpromising condition,' said the chairman...
...On the forested slope Its fall is broken by the foliage and It drops gently upon the mosscovered surface of the ground...
...This is about the way these crops compare in yield...
...First, the South must learn to feed itself—cease to be dependent on northern packing houses and canneries...
...Sow in June...
...Second, Preparation of the seed bed...
...The alfalfa must, however, be given the right conditions...
...Clothing and foodstuffs are bought on credit for a year or more...
...Naming Farms FARMERS throughout the United States, and especially in the middle West, are beginning to name their farms, either for the sake of sentiment or for advertising value...
...And if we can't get air, we can't fix nitrogen...
...The advertising value that is created by so naming a good farm is pointed to in the words of Charles Dillon, of the Kansas Agricultural College: "Why don't you advertise, Mr...
...The southern doctrine of state sovereignty has been thrown overboard and the distress signal hoisted for national aid...
...If the sprinkler is stopped and all the water taken out of both of the streams and the lakes, the lake on the forested side will, within a few hours, receive a considerable amount of water as seepage from the wooded hillside, while the other lake will remain practically empty...
...A working model showing the processes of erosion on deforested slopes has been a feature of exhibits made by the United States Forest Service at recent expositions...
...Here is an object lesson of great value to pupils in the rural districts...
...These are: "First, Seed from a hardy strain as the Grimm...
...The state of Iowa has been one of the leaders in adopting the custom and in Wisconsin, with its many dairy farms, one's eye is frequently caught by such names as Meadowmere, CIov-erleaf, Sunnyside, Cool Graney, Valley View and the like...
...Australia is indebted to Wisconsin," said Mr...
...On the other slope the rain beating down upon the unprotected and hardened surface washes deep gullies in the hillside, carries the soil into the turbid stream which drains the valley below, and thence into a muddy lake...
...But this year, there Is no market for the huge cotton crop...
...A good way is either to put the corn into the silo or 'hog It off' " * * * Cotton Crisis Shows Need of New System of Rural Credit By CHARLES W. HOLM AN THE cotton crisis in the South will demonstrate the weakness of our national banking system...
...In Oklahoma there is a pitiable battle going on against the usury sharks...
...It won't be long before the name of your farm Is known and the people will be calling for your products...
...The whole community is going to the dogs...
...It is the same process of erosion on a larger scale which, after the destruction of our forests, causes the removal of the top soil from our slopes, cuts them up into gullies, and deposits sand and gravel upon the fertile alluvial soil of the bottom lands, in storage reservoirs, or in channels of streams, where it impedes navigation and causes overflow...
...Third, Time of sowing...
...The parents, too, might well take to heart the fact it demonstrates...
...We have done our best...
...But not every Bchool child, or grown person either for that matter, stops to think of the tremendous loss of soil carried away by the unrestrained torrents...
...Fourth, How to plant...
...S. M. Babcock of the Wisconsin College of Agriculture, who invented and gave freely to the whole world the Babcock milk test which has placed millions of dollars in the pockets of farmers...
...I should advise you to pass a resolution—' "But just then a Rothamstead amoeba sneaked in through the door and ate the chairman and eight billion delegates, and the .meeting adjourned in great confusion...
...One acre i falfa will produce as much food \ e as several acres of oats or timothy...
...It should not be deep as in that case the roots are injured...
...Just as we were getting used to this, a great upheaval lifted up nearly a foot of the earth and stood us on our heads...
...Sixth, Use...
...All preconceived theories give way to the stress of necessity...
...Claxton, "to have time for this, the most fundamental of all...
...When the conditions are right for one of them to produce more, the others usually yield more too...
...I shall be glad to hear the ideas of the convention, and I hope debate will be general.' " 'This problem has been solved very nicely on the other side ,of the road,' said one of the strange bacteria...
...Both hills are made of the same kind of soil, that of the region in which the model is erected, but one is covered thickly with twigs, young trees, or shrubs, to simulate a forest, underneath which is a heavy carpet of moss representing the layer of leaves and twigs which covers the ground in the real forest, while the other hill is bare of all vegetation...
...The land should be manured, plowed deeply in the fall and disced several times until the time of sowing, the point being to keep the weeds down and also to make a firm seed bed...
...There came a great roaring over our heads one day and a heavy rain of stained straw covered the earth...
...It is to stock what beefsteak is to man...
...the main stream is made shallower and wider and often overflows into the fields...
...Babcock and his really wonderful butter fat tester it likely would have been impossible for us to have developed what is now one of our most important industries...
...The model consists of two hills sloping down into two valleys through which two streams wind in and out through farm land and lead into two lakes at the front of the landscape...
...The cultivation should be thorough so as to keep the weeds down...
...See the picture...
...It is not surprising, therefore, that the Southern people want the government to do something more fundamental than the placing in the hands of the banking interests additional funds to lend at the legal rate of interest...
...Fifth, Inoculate the soil...
...Something has happened to us...
...Thus does high service to the people of one commonwealth spread its benefits throughout the whole world...
...Corn, to do the best, also needs to have the following conditions: "First, Home grown seed...
...but try as we may, we can't deposit a bit of anything In the way of nitrate to a depth of over six inches...
...The Cotton Crisis By FRANK C. ODELL Secretary, American Rural Credit Association THE cotton crisis has demonstrated three important things: 1. The economic danger of the one crop system...
...Through this and other contributions to Agricultural progress, Wisconsin has had a greater influence upon Australia than any other educational institution outside our own country...
...Or rather it solved itself in quite a wonderful way...
...Had it not been for Dr...
...The description of this imaginary convention goes on as follows: "The convention hall was the shell of a nodule of a crimson clover root...
...Distress of whole sections necessitates limiting the rate of interest, and fixing the amount of money that can be lent on a commodity so unperish-able and so standardized in the world's trade as cotton...
...Schools To Celebrate Farm Life SO fundamental is the upbuilding of rural life, that in the opinion of Dr...
...Fourth, Sow the alfalfa alone...
...Potts, "for its vast dairy industry and for its success in dairying...
...The English and German mills cannot purchase in sufficient quantities to relieve southern distress...
...I s'picioned for a while dat he was gwine to laugh hisse'f to death!—Puck...
...The erosion processes which work themselves out in this model, the wearing down of the hill, the silting up of the stream bed, the gradual shifting of the course of the stream, the formation of deltas and sand bars in the lake, and the gradual opening up of watercourses through them are all typical of the processes constantly fc' ~v «r\ .In r~t;iro and show strikingly .J...
...The town merchant advertises and the farmer can just as well advertise his butter, eggs and Droduce...
...and the beauty and glory of simple and sane life in the open country...
...To help along the answer to the question, the North Dakota Experiment Station has selected four crops, alfalfa, corn, oats and timothy, and has shown that alfalfa leads in the amount produced from an acre of land, with corn coming next, oats third, and timothy last These facts they have given to the farmers of the state through their farm information service...
...oats, thirty-five bushels, and timothy one ton...
...We must get our nitrogen from air, unless some other source of supply can be suggested...
...A nurse crop hurts it...
...Alfalfa is a very rich food...
...3. The financial bondage of the southern farmer...
...De Lawd has sho'ly smiled on yo...
...They are protected by chattel mortgages on crops and all available implements and work stock the tenant farmers may possess...
...By means of a suitable sprinkling device water in the form of rain is made to fall with equal force upon the two hills...
...This report says: "The two greatest feed crops for North Dakota are alfalfa and corn...
...The contented porker or the helpful hen on the diversified farms of the central west are a more potent safeguard of national credit than King Cotton with his fifteen-million-bale crop...
...Corn or potato land ib ideal and should not be plowed...
...ic .ehrlonssMp between forests and surface formation...
...Of all crops grown in the state corn and alfalfa are the most dependable...
...At normal prices this crop will bring only $1,000...
...but as there were only twenty-seven billion delegates there was no lack ot room...
...The report of the Committee on Nitrogen Fixation was read and debated...
...Most of the money that is usually realized on the sale of the crop is already over due to banks, merchants and private money lenders...
...Everything crumbled up, and the air at once began to circulate away down deep...
...Getting the Most from the Soil WHAT crops bring the best returns from the soil...
...The alfalfa and the corn, in addition to producing the large amounts of food value, also leave the land in a condition to produce better succeeding crops...
...We who were near the top were almost a foot down when this great earthquake was over...
...The food values of the four crops are based on the following yields per acre: alfalfa, three tons...
...It shows the working out of the natural phenomena so well, and is so simple and inexpensive to construct, that a similar model might he erected in any school for the use la nature study, elementary agriculture, and physical geography...
...Second, it must learn the futility of putting all its eggs in one basket * * * SCARCITY of farm labor Is causing the farmer to turn his attention more and more toward use of machinery to do his work...
...As soon as we get down over six inches we can get no air...
...the worth and worthiness of tillage of the soil...
...The merchant, the banker and the loan shark hold the planter in perpetual peonage...
...The children in our schools should be given an opportunity to pause in their regular work and consider the significance of agriculture and rural life...
...Fifth, Cultivation...
...While the model is not intended primarily to show more than the erosion processes, it can be used to show also that a forest-covered slope acts as a reservoir in impounding the water and allowing it to seep slowly into the streams, and, on the other hand, that water runs off the surface of a bare slope as soon as it falls, resulting in floods when precipitation is heavy and in droughts during a dry season...
...Third, Time of planting...
...An Odd Convention AN AMUSING sketch appeared in a recent number of Farm and Fireside concerning a convention oi bacteria...
...They will not benefit very much the actual producers nor will they solve the question of cheaper money...
...Second, Corn does best on land that has been manured and deeply plowed and then well , worked down with the disc and harrow...
...The south, with the greatest money crop of its history on hand, is paralyzed by the closing of European markets...
...The regional banks will only be able to meet stringency conditions...
...The stained straw and the deep plowing gave us the air we needed...
...2. The interdependence of the states...
...Babcock and his associates for the advancement of the dairy industry...
...Get a name for your farm and then advertise your farm by that name...
...Some of the delegates came as far as three quarters of an inch, and one delegation was blown by the wind from across the road— an incredible distance...
...It becames necessary, therefore, for the farmers to carry that cotton until there is a market...
...The next best is seed from a well established northern field...
...the silt deposited in the channel of the stream diverts the water, which opens up gullies through the dry land...
...Brotheb Kidd: Smiled...
...Without the bacteria the alfalfa does not do well...
...The cotton farmer, with his family of six or eight, works twelve months to make a crop of twenty bales, at best...
...To do this, the farmers must have money cheaper than the ten per cent, so common as a minimum charge...
...and deltas are built up, in characteristic form at the entrance to the lake...
...Conservationists have long been endeavoring to impress upon the public the terrible waste that follows the stripping bare of hill tops and steep slopes * * * A Tribute to Babcock ATRIBUTE comes from Australia to Dr...
...The crop totals annually about a billion dollars...
...corn, five tons ensilage...
...The moss and the soil beneath, which is kept soft and porous by the protective cover, quickly absorb the rain and allow it to seep out as clear water farther down the slope, thus forming a mountain stream which flows through a green and fertile valley into a clear lake at the lower end of the model...
...This problem will be considered at a conference of farmers, manufacturers of farm machinery and their representatives, together with engineers associated with agricultural experiment stations, to be held in Chicago December 28-30 under the auspices of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, * * * A Season of Mirth Parson Patjftchlet: Congratulate yo' on de triplets, sah...
...When you consider," he continued, "that we export $37,000,000 worth of butter a year to Europe and America and that until the Babcock test was introduced dairying with us was an uncertain and unsatisfactory occupation, you will realize why we appreciate the work done by Dr...
...This is a question that has interested experimenters and farmers for years...
...The above cartoon shows how they compare with oats and timothy in producing food value per acre...
...H. W. Potts, head of the Hawkesbury (New South Wales) Agricultural College and Experiment Station, and a member of the board of agricultural commissioners for Australia, recently visited several of the leading agricultural experiment stations of America...
...This allows time for killing weeds, and alfalfa likes warm weather...
...Suppose you choose the name Fairview...
...islands and silt bars rise in the stream...
...P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, the observance in the schools of one day each year as "Agriculture and Rural Life Day" should become a national custom, Instead of being confined to a few states, as at present...
...We can do without some of our anniversaries if need be," says Dr...
...The best way to plant is in hills so that it can be cultivated both ways...
...For my part, I am very pessimistic...
Vol. 6 • November 1914 • No. 45
